美国国家公共电台 NPR 普鲁德之死致纽约州罗切斯特市警察局领导层集体辞职

The top leadership of the Rochester, N.Y., police department resigned today. That includes chief La'Ron Singletary. The move followed days of sometimes violent clashes between protesters and police. And that unrest began last week, when a video surfaced of officers detaining a Black man named Daniel Prude. Back in March, Prude was held down naked on the street with a hood¹ over his head. He later died in custody², and his death was ruled a homicide. NPR's Brian Mann has been following this story and joins us now.

今天，纽约州罗切斯特市警察局的最高领导层辞职。其中包括警察局长拉罗恩·辛格塔里。此前，抗议者与警方之间的冲突已持续数天，冲突有时甚至会演变成暴力事件。这场骚乱始于上周，当时一段视频显示，警察拘留了一个名叫丹尼尔·普鲁德的黑人男子。三月份时，普鲁德赤身裸体地被压制在街上，头上被戴上兜帽。之后，他在警方拘押期间死亡，他的死亡被判定为谋杀。NPR新闻的布莱恩·曼恩一直在追踪这起事件，现在他将和我们连线。

Hey, Brian.

你好，布莱恩。

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE³: Hey, Ailsa.

布莱恩·曼恩连线：你好，艾尔萨。

CHANG: All right, so what have you learned today about these resignations?

张：好，你对今天这些辞职情况有何了解？

MANN: Yeah, this has developed really fast. Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren appeared this afternoon on a video conference with the city's council. She was expected to give sort of a briefing on the protests and the police response. Instead, she dropped a bombshell.

曼恩：局势发展得非常快。今天下午，罗切斯特市市长洛夫利·沃伦出席了市议会的视频会议。人们本来希望他就抗议事件和警方的回应进行简短说明。但是，她却投下了一颗重磅炸弹。

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

（录音档案）

LOVELY WARREN: I do want to inform you the entire Rochester Police Department command staff has announced their retirement⁴. That includes the police chief. That includes Commander Deputy Chief Morabito.

洛夫利·沃伦：我想通知你们，罗切斯特市警察局的的所有指挥人员已经宣布辞职。这包括警察局长，也包括副局长莫拉比托。

MANN: So the city council responded with a kind of shocked silence. Warren was asked the timeline for Singletary's departure, and it looks like he'll stay on through the end of the month.

曼恩：市议会因过于震惊而陷入沉默。沃伦被问及辛格塔里的离职时间，他似乎会任职到本月底。

CHANG: But I thought La'Ron Singletary said just two days ago that he had no plans to step aside. So what changed here?

张：但我记得拉罗恩·辛格塔里两天前刚刚表态称他不打算辞职。为什么会突然改变？

MANN: Yeah, this is really interesting. La'Ron Singletary is a Black man who grew up in Rochester. He's kind of a native son. He tried to make the case in recent days that he is best suited to reform Rochester's police department. Here's what he said on Sunday.

曼恩：好，这真的值得注意。拉罗恩·辛格塔里是在罗切斯特市长大的黑人。可以说他是土生土长的本市人。最近几天，他试图证明自已是最适合改革罗切斯特警察局的人选。以下是他在上周日所说。

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

（录音档案）

LA'RON SINGLETARY: And I think people do want change. People do want reforms. And I think, you know, even prior to — whether Mr. Prude's death or Mr. Floyd's death, there have been calls for change. And I think that's what we have been continuously doing. That's what we will always do.

拉罗恩·辛格塔：我认为人们确实想要改革。人们想要变革。甚至早在普鲁德之死或弗洛伊德之死发生前，改革的呼声就一直存在。我认为这是我们一直在做的事。也是我们将继续做的事情。

MANN: Yeah, and that message just wasn't working in Rochester. Pressure on Singletary to step aside just kept growing, especially as these protests turned violent. In a written statement today, Singletary complained of what he described as outside entities⁵ trying to destroy his character. It's unclear exactly what that means. He also defended his handling of the Prude case and the protests but said after 20 years on the force, he is retiring.

曼恩：但这种言论在罗切斯特市根本不管用。辛格塔里面临的辞职压力日益增加，尤其是当抗议演变为暴力事件之后。今天，辛格塔里在书面声明中指责称，他所说的外部实体在试图破坏他的声誉。目前尚不清楚这具体是什么意思。他还为自已处理普鲁德案以及抗议活动的方式进行了辩护，但他说，在警局服务20年后，他将辞职。

CHANG: Why has so much of the anger focused on Singletary specifically? Like, what do critics believe he did wrong?

张：为什么这么多的愤怒集中在辛格塔里身上？批评人士认为他做错了什么？

MANN: Daniel Prude was arrested under pretty horrible circumstances. This video shows him lying naked on the street. He's surrounded by officers. It's cold. There's sleet⁶ in the air. He's not covered with a blanket. He has what's called a spit hood over his head. After he died in custody, an autopsy⁷ ruled it a homicide. But police described the incident publicly as a drug overdose. So protest leaders like Ashley Gantt, who I spoke⁸ to a couple of days ago — they say they believe there was a cover-up here. And it's not just Chief Singletary they want out. They also want the mayor, Lovely Warren, to resign as well.

曼恩：丹尼尔·普鲁德在极为糟糕的情况下被捕。视频显示，他赤身裸体地躺在街上。他周围全是警察。天气非常寒冷。空中飘着雨夹雪。他身上没有盖毯子。头上被戴上了防止警察被吐唾沫的兜帽。他在警方拘押期间死亡后，尸检判定为谋杀。但警方公开称这起事件为吸毒过量致死。因此，一些抗议领袖，包括几天前接受我采访的阿什丽·甘特表示，他们认为存在隐瞒情况。他们不只希望警察局长辛格塔里辞职。他们还想让市长洛夫利·沃伦辞职。

ASHLEY GANTT: So we know that she is from this community. We know that La'Ron Singletary is also from this community. We also know that both of these people are Black people. That's why we elected them, right? We elected them in the hopes that when it comes time to stand strong, to stand up for what is right, which is always necessary to do, even when it's hard, even when it's difficult, even when it's against the status quo, that they would do that and represent the people.

阿什丽·甘特：我们知道她来自这个社区。我们知道拉罗恩·辛格塔里也来自这个社区。我们还知道这两个人都是黑人。这就是我们推选他们的原因，对吧？我们选他们出来的目的是，在需要坚定立场、需要支持正确立场时——这是必须的，即使是在困难和艰难时刻，甚至是在违背现状的时候，他们都能坚定不移，而且还要代表人民。

MANN: So Gantt's group, which is called Free The People Rochester, say they plan to keep up the pressure until the mayor steps down as well. But the mayor says she's going to stay.

曼恩：甘特所在组织名为“自由人民罗切斯特”，该组织计划继续施压，直至市长辞职。但市长说她会继续任职。

CHANG: Now, protests in Rochester have been less tense the last couple of nights. There's been more of an effort to de-escalate clashes between police and demonstrators. Do we have any sense at this point for where all of this goes next?

张：最近几个晚上，罗切斯特市抗议活动的紧张局势有所缓和。人们在努力地缓和警察与示威者之间的冲突。现在我们知道接下来局势会如何发展吗？

MANN: Yeah. We know the protests will continue tonight. And these activists⁹ say they feel like they're gaining ground in Rochester. After they began their marches, New York's Attorney General Letitia James announced she's impaneling a grand jury as part of the investigation¹⁰ into Daniel Prude's death. City officials in Rochester have committed now to hiring more mental health workers and shifting funding for mental health care away from the police department. And now that the search for this new leadership for the police department is under way, one thing we'll be watching is how this loss of leadership affects police response to what we're seeing on the street. Again tonight, hundreds of officers and possibly thousands of protesters will be back out there.

曼恩：好。我们了解到，抗议活动今晚仍将持续。这些活动人士表示，他们认为他们在罗切斯特市取得了进展。在他们开始游行之后，纽约州总检察长利蒂希娅·詹姆斯宣布，她将选任一个大陪审团，这是调查丹尔尼·普鲁德之死的部分举措。罗切斯特市官员承诺，将雇佣更多心理健康工作者，并让心理卫生保健的经费与警察局脱钩。现在，警察局寻找新任领导层的工作正在进行，我们将关注的一件事是，警察领导层辞职会对警方对街头事件的应对产生何种影响。今晚，可能有数千名抗议者继续抗议活动，届时将有数百名警察待命。

CHANG: That's NPR's Brian Mann.

张：以上是NPR新闻的布莱恩·曼恩带来的报道。

Thank you, Brian.

谢谢你，布莱恩。

MANN: Thank you, Ailsa.

曼恩：谢谢，艾尔萨。

1 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

2 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

5 entities   

实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Our newspaper and our printing business form separate corporate entities. 我们的报纸和印刷业形成相对独立的企业实体。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities. 北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

6 sleet   

n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹

参考例句：

• There was a great deal of sleet last night.昨夜雨夹雪下得真大。
• When winter comes,we get sleet and frost.冬天来到时我们这儿会有雨夹雪和霜冻。

7 autopsy   

n.尸体解剖；尸检

参考例句：

• They're carrying out an autopsy on the victim.他们正在给受害者验尸。
• A hemorrhagic gut was the predominant lesion at autopsy.尸检的主要发现是肠出血。

8 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

9 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。